Author of the National Book Award-winning
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy is one of the most provocative American stylists to emerge in the last century. The striking novel
Blood Meridian offers an unflinching narrative of the brutality that accompanied the push west on the 1850s Texas frontier.

4 out of 5 stars

Existential leavings

By
Colin
on
03-22-08

Midnight's Children

By:
Salman Rushdie

Narrated by:
Lyndam Gregory

Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
1,208

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
938

Story

4 out of 5 stars
924

Salman Rushdie holds the literary world in awe with a jaw-dropping catalog of critically acclaimed novels that have made him one of the world's most celebrated authors. Winner of the prestigious Booker of Bookers,
Midnight's Children tells the story of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of India's independence.

5 out of 5 stars

Outstanding book, superb narration

By
MarcS
on
06-09-09

The Crying of Lot 49

By:
Thomas Pynchon

Narrated by:
George Wilson

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
432

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
304

Story

4 out of 5 stars
306

Quite unexpectedly, Mrs. Oedipa Maas finds herself the executor of the estate of Pierce Inverarity, a man she used to know in a more-or-less intimate fashion. When Oedipa heads off to Southern California to sort through Pierce's affairs, she becomes ensnared in a hilarious and puzzling worldwide conspiracy.

3 out of 5 stars

Good book, Average recording

By
James
on
08-12-07

American Pastoral

By:
Philip Roth

Narrated by:
Ron Silver

Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
2,263

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,591

Story

4 out of 5 stars
1,580

Philip Roth presents a vivid portrait of an innocent man being swept away by a current of conflict and violence in his own backyard - a story that is as much about loving America as it is hating it. Seymour "Swede" Levov, a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, and the prosperous heir of his father's Newark glove factory comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even a most private, well-intentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history.
American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall ... a strong, confident man, a master of social equilibrium, overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. For the Swede is not allowed to stay forever blissful living out life in rural Old Rimrock in his 170 year-old stone farmhouse with his pretty wife (his college sweetheart and Miss New Jersey of 1949) and his lively albeit precocious daughter, the apple of his eye ... that is until she grows up to become a revolutionary terrorist.

At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England’s irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn’t quite match her name (Jamaican for “no problem”). Samad’s late-in-life arranged marriage produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal’s every effort to direct them.

5 out of 5 stars

A Modern Classic Reworked

By
kurdis teed
on
06-06-18

The Recognitions

By:
William Gaddis

Narrated by:
Nick Sullivan

Length: 48 hrs

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
118

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
90

Story

4 out of 5 stars
93

Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.

5 out of 5 stars

Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny

By
andrew
on
11-17-10

Blood Meridian

Or the Evening Redness in the West

By:
Cormac McCarthy

Narrated by:
Richard Poe

Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
4,017

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,260

Story

4 out of 5 stars
3,247

Author of the National Book Award-winning
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy is one of the most provocative American stylists to emerge in the last century. The striking novel
Blood Meridian offers an unflinching narrative of the brutality that accompanied the push west on the 1850s Texas frontier.

4 out of 5 stars

Existential leavings

By
Colin
on
03-22-08

Midnight's Children

By:
Salman Rushdie

Narrated by:
Lyndam Gregory

Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
1,208

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
938

Story

4 out of 5 stars
924

Salman Rushdie holds the literary world in awe with a jaw-dropping catalog of critically acclaimed novels that have made him one of the world's most celebrated authors. Winner of the prestigious Booker of Bookers,
Midnight's Children tells the story of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of India's independence.

5 out of 5 stars

Outstanding book, superb narration

By
MarcS
on
06-09-09

The Crying of Lot 49

By:
Thomas Pynchon

Narrated by:
George Wilson

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
432

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
304

Story

4 out of 5 stars
306

Quite unexpectedly, Mrs. Oedipa Maas finds herself the executor of the estate of Pierce Inverarity, a man she used to know in a more-or-less intimate fashion. When Oedipa heads off to Southern California to sort through Pierce's affairs, she becomes ensnared in a hilarious and puzzling worldwide conspiracy.

3 out of 5 stars

Good book, Average recording

By
James
on
08-12-07

American Pastoral

By:
Philip Roth

Narrated by:
Ron Silver

Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
2,263

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,591

Story

4 out of 5 stars
1,580

Philip Roth presents a vivid portrait of an innocent man being swept away by a current of conflict and violence in his own backyard - a story that is as much about loving America as it is hating it. Seymour "Swede" Levov, a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, and the prosperous heir of his father's Newark glove factory comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even a most private, well-intentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history.
American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall ... a strong, confident man, a master of social equilibrium, overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. For the Swede is not allowed to stay forever blissful living out life in rural Old Rimrock in his 170 year-old stone farmhouse with his pretty wife (his college sweetheart and Miss New Jersey of 1949) and his lively albeit precocious daughter, the apple of his eye ... that is until she grows up to become a revolutionary terrorist.

At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England’s irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn’t quite match her name (Jamaican for “no problem”). Samad’s late-in-life arranged marriage produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal’s every effort to direct them.

5 out of 5 stars

A Modern Classic Reworked

By
kurdis teed
on
06-06-18

The Recognitions

By:
William Gaddis

Narrated by:
Nick Sullivan

Length: 48 hrs

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
118

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
90

Story

4 out of 5 stars
93

Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.

5 out of 5 stars

Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny

By
andrew
on
11-17-10

Ragtime

By:
E. L. Doctorow

Narrated by:
E. L. Doctorow

Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
825

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
654

Story

4 out of 5 stars
652

The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears.

4 out of 5 stars

Good book, passable narration

By
Darryl
on
09-19-13

The Sot-Weed Factor

By:
John Barth

Narrated by:
Kevin Pariseau

Length: 41 hrs and 26 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
172

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
144

Story

4 out of 5 stars
148

Considered by critics to be Barth's most distinguished novel,
The Sot-Weed Factor has acquired the status of a modern classic. Set in the late 1600s, it recounts the chaotic odyssey of the hapless, ungainly Ebeneezer Cooke. Cooke is sent to the New World to oversee his father's tobacco business and to record the struggles of the Maryland colony in an epic poem. On his mission, he is captured by pirates and Indians; loses his father's estate to roguish impostors; falls in love with a former prostitute; and meets a gallery of treacherous characters who continually switch identities.

5 out of 5 stars

An adventure full of bawdy humour, wit and wonder

By
Janice
on
01-10-12

Dispatches

By:
Michael Herr

Narrated by:
Ray Porter

Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
634

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
544

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
545

One of the greatest examples of war journalism ever written, Michael Herr's clearheaded yet unsparing retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, finding clarity in one of the most incomprehensible events in our modern era. A National Book Critics Circle finalist and highly acclaimed upon its first publication,
Dispatches still retains its resonance as America finds itself amidst another military quagmire.

5 out of 5 stars

One of the GREAT war memoirs of ALL TIME!

By
Darwin8u
on
04-11-12

The North Water

A Novel

By:
Ian McGuire

Narrated by:
John Keating

Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,048

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
979

Story

4 out of 5 stars
971

Behold the man: stinking, drunk, and brutal. Henry Drax is a harpooner on the Volunteer, a Yorkshire whaler bound for the rich hunting waters of the arctic circle. Also aboard for the first time is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon with a shattered reputation, no money, and no better option than to sail as the ship's medic on this violent, filthy, and ill-fated voyage.

4 out of 5 stars

Reader / Listener Beware

By
K. Wade
on
12-23-17

The Naked and the Dead

By:
Norman Mailer

Narrated by:
John Buffalo Mailer

Length: 26 hrs and 14 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
140

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
132

Story

4 out of 5 stars
132

Hailed as one of the finest novels to come out of the Second World War,
The Naked and the Dead received unprecedented critical acclaim upon its publication and has since become part of the American canon. This fiftieth anniversary edition features a new introduction created especially for the occasion by Norman Mailer.

5 out of 5 stars

John Buffalo Mailer narrates his father's book

By
J. Larson
on
08-11-16

The Painted Bird

By:
Jerzy Kosinski

Narrated by:
Fred Berman,
Michael Aronov

Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
237

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
199

Story

4 out of 5 stars
204

A harrowing story that follows the wanderings of a boy abandoned by his parents during World War II,
The Painted Bird is a dark masterpiece that examines the proximity of terror and savagery to innocence and love. It is the first, and the most famous, novel by one of the most important and original writers of this century.

4 out of 5 stars

A guided tour of Hell.

By
Shawn
on
12-01-11

Red Harvest

By:
Dashiell Hammett

Narrated by:
Richard Ferrone

Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
325

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
296

Story

4 out of 5 stars
294

When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant taking on an entire town.
Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain. From the author of
The Maltese Falcon.

4 out of 5 stars

Great story, great narration, terrible reccording

By
yep
on
08-21-14

White Noise

By:
Don DeLillo

Narrated by:
Michael Prichard

Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
203

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
176

Story

4 out of 5 stars
175

When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event", a lethal black chemical cloud floats over the Gladneys' lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladneys - radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings - pulsing with life yet suggesting something ominous.

1 out of 5 stars

Fear of death?

By
Kristina D. Tiedeman
on
02-09-17

No Country for Old Men

By:
Cormac McCarthy

Narrated by:
Tom Stechschulte

Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
5,113

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,561

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,578

Cormac McCarthy, best-selling author of National Book Award winner
All the Pretty Horses, delivers his first new novel in seven years. Written in muscular prose,
No Country for Old Men is a powerful tale of the West that moves at a blistering pace.

5 out of 5 stars

Exceptional, engrossing, frightening.

By
P. Giorgio
on
07-27-13

Remembrance of Things Past

Swann's Way

By:
Marcel Proust,
Scott Moncrieff - translator

Narrated by:
John Rowe

Length: 19 hrs and 44 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
266

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
208

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
207

Swann's Way is Marcel Proust's literary masterpiece and the first part of the multivolume audiobook
Remembrance of Things Past. In the opening volume, the narrator travels back in time to recall his childhood and to introduce the listener to Charles Swann, a wealthy friend of the family and celebrity in the Parisian social scene. He again travels back, this time to the youth of Charles Swann in the French town of Combray, to tell the story of the love affair that took place before his own birth.

5 out of 5 stars

EXCELLENT!

By
Maggie
on
08-18-10

Lolita

By:
Vladimir Nabokov

Narrated by:
Jeremy Irons

Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
6,724

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
5,525

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
5,493

Why we think it’s a great listen: Among the great literary achievements of the 20th century,
Lolita soars in audio thanks to the incomparable Jeremy Irons, bringing to life Nabokov’s ability to shock and enthrall more than 50 years after publication.
Lolita became a cause celebre because of the erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Nabokov's masterpiece owes its stature not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story that is shocking in its beauty and tenderness.

5 out of 5 stars

A masterpiece

By
Erez
on
05-29-08

The Master and Margarita

By:
Mikhail Bulgakov

Narrated by:
Julian Rhind-Tutt

Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,199

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,017

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,019

The Devil comes to Moscow, but he isn't all bad; Pontius Pilate sentences a charismatic leader to his death, but yearns for redemption; and a writer tries to destroy his greatest tale, but discovers that manuscripts don't burn. Multi-layered and entrancing, blending sharp satire with glorious fantasy,
The Master and Margarita is ceaselessly inventive and profoundly moving. In its imaginative freedom and raising of eternal human concerns, it is one of the world's great novels.

4 out of 5 stars

Satisfying Satanic Satire

By
Jacob
on
12-06-11

Publisher's Summary

In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action - and profit - by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him.
Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers - and the price of survival was dangerously high.

oy gevalt

dull and painful and depressing

This book is well read and has a superficially plausible plot. It was good enough that I managed to listen through to the bitter end, but that's the best I can say for it. A tale of a not-very-bright journalist's foray into the drug business, the story never becomes believable or engaging. We have deep exploration into the human psyche. We have page after page of slow, unredeeming death. The book is dull and painful and depressing - Conrad without the magic.